What you need to know — and what you might have forgotten — about the ANC's commitment for fighting corruption.

It's a long thread but the full story is important in light of recent events.

1999: Pres Mbeki announced the creation of a special investigative unit to deal with organised crime, including corruption. It was to be independent of the police, so that it could also prosecute police corruption.

2001: The unit — the Directorate of Special Operations aka The Scorpions — was established. It was located within the National Prosecuting Authority and had special, police-like investigative powers as well as prosecutorial ones.

The Scorpions soon became notorious for their investigations and prosecutions of high-ranking ANC officials, mostly relating hundreds of millions in bribes paid during the Arms Deal.

Most relevantly, in 2003 to 2005, the Scorpions investigated and brought charges against then Dep Pres Jacob Zuma, his close friend Schabir Shaik and Minister of Transport Mac Maharaj. Shaik was convicted and Zuma was put on trial for corruption.

To illustrate the Scorpions' effectiveness, by 2004, they had completed 653 cases: 273 investigations and 380 prosecutions. Of the prosecutions, 349 resulted in convictions. A 93% success rate. That's unheard of in South Africa by today's standards.

Zuma's allies in the ANC and COSATU lamented the fact that the unit was so powerful and viewed it as a counter-revolutionary force that would disrupt the government's transformative agenda. They began applying pressure to have the Scorpions disbanded.

In 2005, likely in response to this pressure, Pres Mbeki appointed a commission, headed by Judge Khampepe to investigate the powers of and rationale for the Scorpions, and whether it should be moved from the NPA to the SAPS, to be overseen by the Police Minister.

The Khampepe Commission, for the most part, approved of the good work of the Scorpions and recommended in 2006 that it remain within the NPA, retaining powers independent of the police. Cabinet accepted these recommendations.

Despite this, the pressure to disband the Scorpions from within the ANC didn't go away. In 2007, at the ANC's Polokwane conference (the one where Zuma was elected leader), they adopted a resolution that the Scorpions should be disbanded and its members moved to the SAPS.

The problem with this is that under the SAPS, they would be under the direct control of the executive — the President and his cabinet. They would have no independence from government (as they did when part of the NPA) to investigate and prosecute corruption.

In 2008, Cabinet produced draft legislation which would disband the Scorpions and amalgamate it with the SAPS. The Bill was sent to parliament.

A businessman, Hugh Glenister, challenged the legality of Cabinet's decision, alleging a breach of the separation of powers.

The Constitutional Court unanimously held (Glenister I) that Cabinet's decision was legal and that no material and irreversible harm to our democracy had arisen as a result of the decision.

In October 2008, Parliament disbanded the Scorpions. All ANC MPs voted in favour.

The new legislation created the Hawks. Some members of the Scorpions were moved to the Hawks. They reported to Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi. Selebi had until that point been under investigation by the Scorpions for corruption.

Glenister went to court again.

In Glenister II, the CC held that the legislation was invalid because it did not give the Hawks an adequate degree of independence. The court emphasised the need for an effective corruption-fighting investigative unit. It gave Parliament 18 months to fix the legislation.

Parliament did amend the legislation in 2012, but the Hawks still fell under the control of the executive. They still did not enjoy the independence from government that the Scorpions did as part of the NPA.

Glenister — along with the Helen Suzman Foundation — went to court yet again. The WC High Court dismissed Glenister's application and awarded a punitive costs order against him. They upheld portions of HSF's application.

In 2015, the CC held (Helen Suzman case) that some of the sections of the Hawks legislation were to be 'cut out' so as to try to protect the Hawks from executive interference. This included a section that allowed the police minister to suspend and remove the head of the Hawks.

Despite this, the Hawks have shown themselves to be completely toothless. There has not been a single high-profile corruption prosecution in the 11 years since they were founded.

In 2019, Pres Ramaphosa said he was thinking about some new state institution to investigate and prosecute corruption. This hasn't materialised. He promised to reinvigorate and re-capacitate the NPA, which was paralysed under Zuma. This hasn't happened, either.

Last week, in response to the unfolding stories about Covid tender corruption, Ramaphosa announced that the Special Investigating Unit is to be tasked with 'probing' allegations of wrongdoing.

The SIU is not independent. It's under full control of the executive.

The SIU also has no independent criminal prosecutorial capacity. All it can do is bring corruption to the attention of the Hawks and the NPA. As we have said, the Hawks are not independent and the NPA has very little capacity.

This thread illustrates three things:

(1) The ANC, over the past 15 years, has programatically destroyed effective legal mechanisms that allow the investigation and prosecution of gov corruption. They have done so to enable their own theft, which continues to this day.

(2) We still don't have the tools to enable the cleaning up of the state. Our current mechanisms are toothless and prone to government interference. This has been proven by the lack of prosecutions for well-evidenced state capture in the past ten years.

(3) Ramaphosa has paid lip service to fighting corruption, but has failed to do anything meaningful. He has not even started to address the problem. His recent concern and dismay is thus completely disingenuous and makes one wonder if he's benefitting from corruption himself.